Saturday, March 14, 2009
Well I was supposed to write this review yesterday, but I got so tired and thought writing the review today would be better. Anyway, not sure if I want to do a long winded review or a short, plain and simple review. Okay, whatever it is I will just write the review based on how much I know about the movie itself and how much thought I have in my mind right now. But a word of warning though, this review may have some spoilers in it so read it with caution if you don't want to spoil yourself....
A brief explanation on the production of the movie, as we all know (or have no clue about this) the Watchmen film is based on the comic book of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, and was directed by Zack Snyder. The movie was originally planned to be made in 1986, but after many setbacks the movie finally went into production around 2007 and completed in 2008. Not sure why it took so long to be released, but the fact that it overshot the original release date by years really hurt the overall "feel" of the movie.
The movie itself is quite something really to be honest. I really can't describe how well or horrible the movie was going to be even from the trailers or the posters (and I'll admit, I watched the movie even without looking at either the posters or movie first. Only after...) and only after finish watching the movie I could finally find the right words to describe the movie. But by then it is too late to say anything about the movie's expectation. Not sure how to put it in words, but you could say that the movie had surely have some kind of "mixed" point of view from everyone. Some say it was probably one of the best comic book adaptation movies so far, while others say that the movie was totally ruined and doesn't do the comic book justice. For me at least, I'm the middle on the fence about the movie.
Zack Snyder has always been known to have a certain style or trademark that you could easily pick out in each of his movies, whether it was the slow motion of the fight scene, the dark atmosphere and settings that you'd obviously feel when you watch, or just the sheer violence that is portrayed in his movies so much so that you just feel wrong about watching the movie. In many ways, his kind of style either make or break a movie. Fortunately though, this style was pulled off quite nicely throughout and not too overly done like it was in 300.
But the one thing I really don't like about the movie is that the movie really doesn't flow smoothly. The fact that it was done in an anachronic order kinda threw me off quite early in the movie, leaving me to think where the direction of the movie was going. Having never followed the comic book, general knowledge about Watchmen or even the approximate time of the movie just left me stranded watching the movie without any clue whatsoever. I don't mind they did the movie that way if I followed Watchmen quite closely, but as a normal movie goer it may very well spoil the mood of watching the movie. (like my friends did) Also, the movie tend to have too many sexually explicit scenes that was too boring to watch in the theater and have unnecessary cuts just to avoid those scenes. In my opinion, they could have very well used those extra times improving the story instead of these "teaser" scenes that is just utter crap. If they wanted to they could just add those scenes on the DVD/Blu Ray version, and I'm sure everyone would be happy with that decision.
Apart from that I also have to say that the movie was just too long. At 162 minutes (or 2 hours 42 minutes) it feels as if I was forced to watch the movie and drag along watching it and ask myself if losing the ticket was really a good thing. My friend already told me he wanted to leave even before the movie was halfway done, but I insisted I would not waste my RM8 and tried to bear it and force myself to watch it. If the plot was done with much more focus on the story and not exaggerated and having many twists in the story, as well as make the camera movement more exciting and unique like The Dark Knight and not dead and static like it was it could have been more bearable. Unfortunately the director was too focused on getting the scenes right and have it pay homage to the comic that he totally forgot what it would feel like for an average person to painstakingly watch the movie. I'm sure there would be people walking out on this movie if it was any crappier. I could watch The Dark Knight until the end and still want more, but this left a lot to be desired...
Now for the casts. I think most of them did the scenes quite okay-ish and some of the scenes were memorable. The portrayal on some of the famous names in the movie was very well done, as well as the whole "world war" conflict betweeen America and Russia has a very "nostalgic 80's" feel to the movie. Not too modern or too outdated. The best actor I find while watching the movie was definitely Jackie Earle Haley who portrays as Walter Kovacs / Rorschach. He brought so much energy and intensity to the movie that it may very well be the only reason I should watch the movie again. He also happens to read the Watchmen comic books (unlike the other actor/actresses) and made an effort to get into character, so it was no surprise that his acting was almost perfect throughout the movie. Apart from him, the other casts were so-so and only Patrick Wilson (Daniel Dreiberg / Nite Owl II) stand out from the rest. However I think the only person who felt out of place was Billy Crudup. (Dr. Jon Osterman / Dr. Manhattan) I mean not to say that his acting was poor or anything, but was just disappointed with the way he portray the character. It felt so lifeless and was almost like a walking robot, even his voice was sub-par when you compare him and the character.
Overall, I'm still split with how the movie is. Good in a way that the movie does in a way pay tribute to the comic book so well, but bad that its not something that everyone would enjoy watching. You could say that some people are a bit bias with their reviews, with some of them praising it too much as if they were the real fanboys of the Watchmen while others condemned it too much and totally forget the time, passion and effort that was put into the movie so long that it almost took 20 years for the movie to materialize. As for me, I just summed it up with my honest opinion. Dare I say it, I do recommend you people to watch the movie if you think it deserved to be watched but on the other hand, for the average person they should just try to avoid watching this movie altogether and just wait for the DVD or something.
Yeah yeah, I could have write even longer than this but my mind is completely drained right now. Again I apologize if there were any spoilers during the review, and also apologize if it looks too long to read cause I wanted to give my best perspective on the review. Anyways, I think this is absolutely the longest review I could ever write so far, and could very well easily beat the reviews on rottentomatoes or even imdb lol! Hope I didn't miss anything important out and hope you had as much fun reading this.
I'll give it a rating of 4.0 out of 10. Not really that bad of a movie, but then again its never really good either...
A brief explanation on the production of the movie, as we all know (or have no clue about this) the Watchmen film is based on the comic book of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, and was directed by Zack Snyder. The movie was originally planned to be made in 1986, but after many setbacks the movie finally went into production around 2007 and completed in 2008. Not sure why it took so long to be released, but the fact that it overshot the original release date by years really hurt the overall "feel" of the movie.
The movie itself is quite something really to be honest. I really can't describe how well or horrible the movie was going to be even from the trailers or the posters (and I'll admit, I watched the movie even without looking at either the posters or movie first. Only after...) and only after finish watching the movie I could finally find the right words to describe the movie. But by then it is too late to say anything about the movie's expectation. Not sure how to put it in words, but you could say that the movie had surely have some kind of "mixed" point of view from everyone. Some say it was probably one of the best comic book adaptation movies so far, while others say that the movie was totally ruined and doesn't do the comic book justice. For me at least, I'm the middle on the fence about the movie.
Zack Snyder has always been known to have a certain style or trademark that you could easily pick out in each of his movies, whether it was the slow motion of the fight scene, the dark atmosphere and settings that you'd obviously feel when you watch, or just the sheer violence that is portrayed in his movies so much so that you just feel wrong about watching the movie. In many ways, his kind of style either make or break a movie. Fortunately though, this style was pulled off quite nicely throughout and not too overly done like it was in 300.
But the one thing I really don't like about the movie is that the movie really doesn't flow smoothly. The fact that it was done in an anachronic order kinda threw me off quite early in the movie, leaving me to think where the direction of the movie was going. Having never followed the comic book, general knowledge about Watchmen or even the approximate time of the movie just left me stranded watching the movie without any clue whatsoever. I don't mind they did the movie that way if I followed Watchmen quite closely, but as a normal movie goer it may very well spoil the mood of watching the movie. (like my friends did) Also, the movie tend to have too many sexually explicit scenes that was too boring to watch in the theater and have unnecessary cuts just to avoid those scenes. In my opinion, they could have very well used those extra times improving the story instead of these "teaser" scenes that is just utter crap. If they wanted to they could just add those scenes on the DVD/Blu Ray version, and I'm sure everyone would be happy with that decision.
Apart from that I also have to say that the movie was just too long. At 162 minutes (or 2 hours 42 minutes) it feels as if I was forced to watch the movie and drag along watching it and ask myself if losing the ticket was really a good thing. My friend already told me he wanted to leave even before the movie was halfway done, but I insisted I would not waste my RM8 and tried to bear it and force myself to watch it. If the plot was done with much more focus on the story and not exaggerated and having many twists in the story, as well as make the camera movement more exciting and unique like The Dark Knight and not dead and static like it was it could have been more bearable. Unfortunately the director was too focused on getting the scenes right and have it pay homage to the comic that he totally forgot what it would feel like for an average person to painstakingly watch the movie. I'm sure there would be people walking out on this movie if it was any crappier. I could watch The Dark Knight until the end and still want more, but this left a lot to be desired...
Now for the casts. I think most of them did the scenes quite okay-ish and some of the scenes were memorable. The portrayal on some of the famous names in the movie was very well done, as well as the whole "world war" conflict betweeen America and Russia has a very "nostalgic 80's" feel to the movie. Not too modern or too outdated. The best actor I find while watching the movie was definitely Jackie Earle Haley who portrays as Walter Kovacs / Rorschach. He brought so much energy and intensity to the movie that it may very well be the only reason I should watch the movie again. He also happens to read the Watchmen comic books (unlike the other actor/actresses) and made an effort to get into character, so it was no surprise that his acting was almost perfect throughout the movie. Apart from him, the other casts were so-so and only Patrick Wilson (Daniel Dreiberg / Nite Owl II) stand out from the rest. However I think the only person who felt out of place was Billy Crudup. (Dr. Jon Osterman / Dr. Manhattan) I mean not to say that his acting was poor or anything, but was just disappointed with the way he portray the character. It felt so lifeless and was almost like a walking robot, even his voice was sub-par when you compare him and the character.
Overall, I'm still split with how the movie is. Good in a way that the movie does in a way pay tribute to the comic book so well, but bad that its not something that everyone would enjoy watching. You could say that some people are a bit bias with their reviews, with some of them praising it too much as if they were the real fanboys of the Watchmen while others condemned it too much and totally forget the time, passion and effort that was put into the movie so long that it almost took 20 years for the movie to materialize. As for me, I just summed it up with my honest opinion. Dare I say it, I do recommend you people to watch the movie if you think it deserved to be watched but on the other hand, for the average person they should just try to avoid watching this movie altogether and just wait for the DVD or something.
Yeah yeah, I could have write even longer than this but my mind is completely drained right now. Again I apologize if there were any spoilers during the review, and also apologize if it looks too long to read cause I wanted to give my best perspective on the review. Anyways, I think this is absolutely the longest review I could ever write so far, and could very well easily beat the reviews on rottentomatoes or even imdb lol! Hope I didn't miss anything important out and hope you had as much fun reading this.
I'll give it a rating of 4.0 out of 10. Not really that bad of a movie, but then again its never really good either...
I haven't watched this yet, I only even found out about the movie and comic a week ago...
I've seen the PV last week, and my first impression was, boring... not my cup of tea...
reading your review made my impression lasts.
So if I want to watch this movie, my reason would be: so that I could talk about it with people who watched it, just not to get out of place, in short, just watch it for granted...
anyways, thanks for the review, I hope you watch more movies and tell us about your opinions...
oh, I almost tl;dr'd hehehe, good thing I was able to get past the middle part where things go interesting...